Buckley: Realignment with Red Sox and Yankees in separate divisions will kill, not fix, baseball

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UNRIVALED INTENSITY: The Yankees’ Aaron Judge wrestles with reliever Joe Kelly while other Red Sox try to intervene during a battle between the teams in April at Fenway. The teams resume their rivalry tonight with the start of a three-game series at Yankee Stadium.

Everyone has a plan for how to “fix” baseball, and some of what’s put out there makes sense. Designated hitters for everyone? Sure. Expanded playoffs? Has merit.

And then there’s what I like to call “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” which posits that baseball would regain its “America’s Pastime” bumper sticker simply by planting a runner on second base when games go to extra innings.

But there’s one suggestion that, if you’re a fan of the Yankees or Red Sox, should excite you and terrify you at the same time.

I’m talking about realignment.

It should excite these fans — and, really, all fans — because realignment makes so much sense it’s shocking commissioner Rob Manfred hasn’t already reshuffled the entire deck, beginning with the dissolution of the National League and American League.

The scary part is the fine print.

As in: What if, in MLB’s pursuit of a realignment plan, the Red Sox and Yankees somehow wound up in different divisions and played fewer games against each other?

You laugh. But veteran hardball writer Jayson Stark of The Athletic recently took that road trip when he posted his own how-to-fix-baseball plan. In his realigned baseball world, he has the Yankees, Mets, Nationals and Orioles in one division, and the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Phillies and Pirates in another.

Yes, Stark leaves himself wiggle room in stating that “it wouldn’t be hard to redraw the map” to keep the Red Sox and Yankees in the same division.

With the teams beginning a three-game weekend series tonight in the Bronx, this is as good a time as any to warn — yes, warn — Major League Baseball to keep its mitts off this rivalry.

Now if you want to jump in here and point out that Red Sox-Yankees ain’t what it used to be, the thrill is gone, baseball is dead, when do the Pats open training camp, etc., you go right ahead and do that. The problem with that line of thinking is that it’s so 2017.

Admittedly, Red Sox-Yankees was getting dusty, last year included. Now look where we are: The Sox went out and got J.D. Martinez, the Yankees went out and got Giancarlo Stanton. The Red Sox have young players who are growing into seasoned veterans right before our eyes. The Yankees have young players who are growing into seasoned veterans right before our eyes. Each team has a first-time manager — Alex Cora for the Sox, Aaron Boone for the Yankees — who has displayed an ability to communicate with various clubhouse factions. It doesn’t hurt that both men experienced the rivalry during their own playing days, Boone historically so.

Not to get all high-hat here, but I will: During the offseason, after a Bronx press conference was convened so photos could be snapped of Boone climbing into his crisp, new pinstriped button-down, I predicted the Sox-Yankees rivalry would return in a big way in 2018. I even guaranteed a bench-clearing fight on April 12, the third meeting of the season between the two teams.

I missed by one game. On the night of April 11 — the second game of the season between the two teams — Red Sox reliever Joe Kelly drilled Tyler Austin for payback after the Yankee rookie made a slide into second the Sox didn’t like. Austin charged the mound, nostrils flared, and both players wound up with suspensions. A photo emerged showing Kelly looking locked and loaded and poised to deliver a solid right, elevating Fightin’ Joe to hero status in New England. Kelly loved it: When the suspension meant he couldn’t play baseball he turned right around and played man of the people, spending a few innings in the Fenway bleachers during a Sox-Rays game.

Did the Yankees’ decision to hire Boone inspire Austin to slide aggressively into second? Did it inspire Kelly to be on the watch for perceived breaches of etiquette? Well, no. But Boone, remember, is the guy whose home run off Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS propelled the Yankees into the World Series and sent the Red Sox back to a well-worn drawing board. The home run was, in a way, a warmup act to what happened in 2004, when the Sox had a mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore attitude in the ALCS rematch, roaring back from a 0-3 deficit and then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Considering the decades of torment the Yankees had delivered to the Red Sox, along with the Cardinals breaking Sox’ hearts in the ’46 and ’67 World Series, Boston’s 2004 postseason was the hardball equivalent of Michael Corleone taking out the heads of the five families.

Of most importance, the stars are so aligned as to give us a season in which both the Red Sox and Yankees are very good at the same time. What a great way to commemorate the 1978 Sox-Yankees dogfight, which led to a one-game playoff, which the Yankees won, which transformed Bucky Dent into a cult figure in New York and a cuss word in Boston.

By whatever means, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is hot again. Tomorrow night’s game will be televised nationally by Fox, and Sunday night’s game is getting the ESPN treatment.

Fans deserve more Sox-Yankees, not less. If the day ever arrives when the Sox and Pirates are division rivals and the Yankees land in a division with the O’s, Nats and Amazin’s, that’ll be the day the baseball music died.